


Trant's Tritris Trauma Therapy Case study: 51-001-KK-PP

by Morgue_XiiV



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Gen, M/M, POV Kim Kitsuragi, game, kim's not like with anyone but he's looking at some boys while they talk thinking mayyyyybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29514417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgue_XiiV/pseuds/Morgue_XiiV
Summary: Kim is concussed. He's facing a lot of responsibility. He's had a rough day. The last thing he wants is Trant debating game design merits with him for half an hour. No, actually, that's the second to last thing, the very last thing he wants is...
Comments: 15
Kudos: 25





	Trant's Tritris Trauma Therapy Case study: 51-001-KK-PP

Kim Kitsuragi shivered and woke suddenly to the smell of sweat and the whistle of wind over shards of glass. He straightens his glasses and glances at his electric sport watch. He had only drifted off for about 13 minutes, as best he can tell, but he had straight up fallen asleep on Harrier’s good leg. His face feels a little sticky with sweat, so he hurriedly wipes it with his increasingly filthy handkerchief. Then he checks on Harry; firstly, that he is still unconscious and had not perceived Kim’s inappropriate nap spot, then- less importantly- that he is still alive.

Kim stands and stretches the desperately tense muscles of his bruised back. He needs to get away from Harry. At least for a bit. He can not keep checking on every long pause between the man’s heavy ragged breaths. He cannot fall asleep in his _temporary partner_ ’s lap. He feels his whole core vibrate every time he thinks about how close he had come to losing him.

Garte was making coffee for everyone, the whirling’s cafeteria space is transformed into a sort of temporary disaster recovery refuge. The bustle of people too keyed up from the fight to go to sleep. Combatants. Witnesses. Rubberneckers who have come to get the news while it’s still fresh. Before the adrenaline wears off and chatty mouths stiffen with grief. Kim gratefully accepts a cup of coffee. A look of understanding passes between the two men along with the steaming drink. No words are welcome. Not today. Not yet.

Trant Heidelstam is also there. He hovers. Kim looks directly at him with tired eyes. He cannot bring himself to make small talk. Or large talk. Or even an expression. But the understated welcome of silence does not exist here as it did with Garte. Trant. He is here to talk.

“Are you having coffee, officer?” Trant asks in his usual lilting voice. The seriousness of the situation has no impact on either his expression or his upbeat voice.

Kim only nods. It is obvious that he is. Certinately no sense in denying it.

“I heard you got a hell of a knock back out there lieutenant. Do you think you might be concussed?”

“I am fairly sure I am. Yes.” Kim takes a big swig from the mug. His throat burns and numbs. It is the least of his worries. This pain, achieved of his own volition, comforts somehow.

“I’m not sure caff _eine_ is the indication for a concussion, Lieutenant. Though, you have more _medical_ knowledge than I do-”

“Mhm.”

“I hope you’re aware that the recommendation that you don’t sleep after a concussion is rooted in medical practices of observing mental state. It simply references the fact you _cannot notice_ someone beginning to slur their words, or even, in more dramatic scenarios, drifting into a coma, if they are _already asleep_. This means if you are concussed, but in a situations where no _independent_ observer is available, there’s actually _no benefit_ to you staying awake! It can _even_ be detrimental!” Trant grins, having successfully delivered this thesis.

Kim nods slowly, and trying consciously to remove some of the bitterness from his voice, responds; “I am not drinking coffee because I believe it’s important to remain awake for my own health. I am drinking coffee because there is no-one else to ensure Lieutenant double-yefreytor du Bois does not quietly bleed to death in the night.”

Trant nods, unperturbed by this frank admission. If he is offended by Kim’s candor, it does not show.

Kim continues archly, “Unless you have some medical training and spare time, Special Consultant?”

“No, I don’t have the _benefit_ of your training I’m afraid.” if anything he sounds a little relieved. “My specialities lie… elsewhere. And obviously I have to get back home to Mikhail soon.”

“I see. Perhaps you should return home now then. Mikhail needs you more than Harrier does.”

“I will! Shortly. I actually have the babysitter until 10 pm, if you can believe it-”

“Let’s assume I can.” Kim says dryly. He sinks himself onto one of the hard benches of the Whirling-in-Rags main dining space. He chose the bench with his back to the summer doors where they overlook the courtyard. He cannot stare out at it right now. The balcony beside Harry’s room is no-longer a relaxing vantage point to view the world. Kim smoked his daily cigarette in Harry’s room, blowing smoke directly out of his shattered window as he psyched himself up to insert a sterilised metal spatula into his colleague’s ragged flesh, pry out a bullet. He shakes his head, returning to the present, where Trant sits opposite him. “There are some things I wanted to discuss with you _quite_ urgently, Lieutenant.”

“Oh.” Kim lets his eyes wander.

“Are you familiar with the popular Graadian radiocomputer game from those projector arcades? Tri-tris?”

“The infantile one with all the colourful triangles tessellating?” This was not what Kim expected the conversation to start with, he tilts his head, curious despite himself.

“That’s it! Have you ever played it lieutenant?”

“I can’t say I see the appeal. No.”

Trant nods and sips his coffee.

Kim waits patiently for a moment before adding “Why did you ask?”

“Oh yes. I was getting to that.” Trant smiles again. Warm, but nervous. “I recently read a research paper in psychology that investigated the effects of tri-tris on the human _mind_. It was quite interesting!”

“Did it... _wither it away to nothing?_ ” Kim asks, bitingly. Then, softening his voice, he adds, “I’m afraid I have a lot on my mind and probable concussion is making me unpleasant to be around.” Subtly, he hopes this conveys the subtext that he would prefer to be alone right now.

“Not at all! I understand you’ve had a _pretty_ hard day!” The upbeat tone of his voice seems to add insult to injury.

“Mhm.” Kim was too polite to hammer how much of an understatement this was. Bruises are only now starting to form over his pallid skin. Everything hurts in a raw caustic way, now adrenaline has started to recede.

“Though, I would like to note, that games are art in as many ways as other art forms can be considered-”

“I am well aware that games incorporate almost all the arts. However, tri-tris, is not the sort of game that I would call _art_.”

“No, perhaps in comparison to a narrative rich adventure programme, or something like the Wirrâl Untethered setting proposed by local development company Fortress Occident, the artistic content of a simple block aligning game such as tri-tris could be ignored, yet, if you consider the design and behavioural hypertext, there-”

Kim listens to this, passively unable to summon the energy to hunt for a thread of relevance. It’s clear the conversation of further evaluating artistic merits of games has no obvious end-point. It becomes even less clear what purpose Trant had in coming here. Kim loses himself in the drone of Trant’s voice until he remembers how the conversation began and gently says “The paper? You mentioned a psychological paper?”

“Yes! Exactly. This paper theorised that by making use of the well known tri-tris effect that causes the brain to ruminate, excessively, on radiocomputer games that have been engaging the brain in a certain problem solving mode…” Kim rolled his eyes the smallest fraction he could hide behind a flurry of blinks, and returned to Trant Mode; find the babble soothing. It was probably a conversation he would have been fascinated by at another time. Now his mind was elsewhere. Part of it scattered on the Martinaise Mosaic, knocked straight out of his head by the butt of De Paule’s gun. Part of it lay with Harrier, constantly checking the flutter of a pulse and examining his neatly stitched wound so frequently he probably did more harm than good. Part of it- shredded by ULAN frequency- was scattered to the winds, reliving every moment he could have- by all logic and reason _should_ have- died that day.

“This rumination is not so unlike the” Trant’s voice continued. Like an anchor. It soothed in its relentless, curious joyfulness. “rumination of trauma and stressors that can cause disordered thinking in the wake of an event. Not unlike this one.”

Rolling back through the conversation, Kim thinks he has an inkling where this is headed. He merely nods again. His coffee has stopped giving off the thread of steam, so he takes this moment of concentration to gulp down the dusty final mouthful.

“This means a diverting game that engages the right sort of attention can actually compete with the brain’s natural response to solidifying trauma.”

“What you’re saying is-”

“Yes! If you spent the next day or two playing in projector arcades, it might _really_ help you cope with any emotional fallout-”

“This is not my first firefight, Special Consultant.”

“No, and I’m sure it _won’t_ be your last,” Trant says this with no apparent awareness of the wincing reaction that shoots down Kim’s spine at that moment. “But it was a traumatic experience nonetheless. All that death, and needing to split your attention between providing first aid to Harry and protecting yourself from that-”

“Yes.” Kim says abruptly, trying to cut off the recounting. There is enough of it in his mind already. Trant had clearly been gathering details from gossip while he lay in wait for Kim.

“I’m simply suggesting a diversion might be able to alleviate some of that damage. Not the physical. That heals. But the psychological can be _so_ much more lasting. And, if this could help… it would make an interesting peer review for the research. I mean, no, it’s potentially _very_ beneficial. For you.” He emphasizes this. It's not _just_ for science.

“I appreciate the thought that went into this plan. However. I cannot simply drive away in my Kineema and _hang out_ at the nearest arcade. Someone needs to be here. To tend to the Detective. As I mentioned.”

“Right, but it needn’t technically be a game of Tri-Tris. The benefits are probably similar for any game that requires the attention of split-second decision making and is relatively engaging.”

“I’m sure, however, again…” Kim looks at Trant now and sees a suspiciously steady gaze that passes over his shoulder. Kim suspects he knows exactly what that gaze focuses on. Still, he turns lazily to regard his silent enemy. The pinball machine in the corner of the Whirling In Rags cafeteria. It sits, dim and silent under a sign proclaiming in a man’s handwriting; “Hors D’usage”.

“Now, Lieutenant, I know this may not be how you’d like to spend your free time right now.”

“You _know_ that, do you?” Kim's voice snaps as he folds his arms over his chest tightly, the swishy fabric of his jacket compressing with the force of his discomfort.

“This is a legitimate medical technique.” Trant continues unperturbed by the hostile body language. Oblivious to it, even. “If we can get that machine working again, it could really help you.”

Kim tilts his head. Pensive. Evaluating Trant through the little circle of maximum clarity in the windows to his world. He was quite the conversationalist. But to Kim’s taste, he didn’t comment on other people. He spoke of himself sparingly if the topic came up. Of science, computing, psychology, politics, history he could apparently talk for hours. But he had not commented on Harry. He had not made any jokes about the Pinball Policeman. So Kim nodded slowly. Darting a glance towards Garte, who was hanging his head in a funk and not paying them any attention, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a bundled handkerchief. Placing it on the table he deftly flicks away the corners of the fabric to reveal the sturdy glass tube, glittering in the Whirling’s lights. A fuse.

He finally announces, “I can get it working” His face is flat. His voice, quiet and intense. Trant nods to this. He seems able to put the pieces together but he doesn’t offer comment, so Kim continues. “I just… I know how it goes when I meet another RCM officer for the first time. The last thing I want when I see another detective in what I _hope_ will be a professional engagement is to be asked to demonstrate my… pinball powers. So, when I got here. It was not an encouraging sight, that machine. But detective Du Bois gave me ample opportunity while I was waiting for him to… collect himself. I manufactured a small defect.”

Trant nods again, he does not appear judgmental.

“I would, of course, have restored it to working order before I left.” He steals another glance over at Garte. He thinks Garte probably knows why the pinball machine isn’t working. His comment- after Harrier’s window and Klaasje’s phone line- about having _no_ good guests, was not lost on him. Subtext was a comfortable territory. Still, he doesn’t want to flaunt it.

Finally Trant speaks again, “When you play pinball a lot, Lieutenant, do you get that? Where your brain keeps trying to play it even when you’re doing something else? It overtakes your dreams. You start thinking of every day problems in terms of how you’d approach them in a game of pinball?”

“Yes. It’s one of the many, many truly abhorrent things the game has to offer.”

“But you’d rather _that_ than flashbacks of a firefight, right?” Trant is clearly looking for a ‘yes’ here. Kim takes a moment.

He briefly allows his mind to filter back to the tensest moments. Wrestling desperately with de Paule’s locked, muscular arms, his hands tinged with terror-sweat are struggling to grip an unyielding vitreous carapace. Any traction he can get comes from his narrow fingers worming into the seams that the suit needs to be anything but a ceramic coffin, and Harrier’s blood forming a congealed coating on his palms. The last second where she managed to get free of him, far enough away to stop bashing his head on the ground and really get him in the sights of her large-bore gun. That moment when he had been so sure he would die. And a tiny fragment of his mind did not care… because he was just as sure that while he was there, getting beaten, Harry would have bled out. Then the flicker of red, spluttered from the neck seam of her cuirass, freed by a bullet… he barely remembers loading it. Yet it was fired, and fired perfectly on instinct. While she was close enough to _bleed_ on him, his very blindest blindspot. The gap his prying hands had found at her neck. Exploding outward.

Then he thought of pinball. Just for a second before the esophagus of his mind retched.

“I’m tempted… to say it’s a wash.” He enunciates calmly.

“Okay! Well if that’s how you feel. I can’t make you do anything! I just thought I’d come out here after hearing about the shoot out and let _you_ know what _I_ think would help you. It’s not a big deal.” He grins like it’s not a big deal.

“I’ll definitely consider what you said. Special Consultant. Trant. Thank you for taking the time.” Kim bows his head graciously and privately sighs with relief when Trant excuses himself shortly.

“I could _really_ use a report on it, if you do try anything. There are a lot of traumatic _events_ in the lifetime of an RCM officer. Anything we can consider that will keep officers on the streets and not curled up in a dark room at home merits some testing.”

Kim closes his eyes. His hand is still locked around the cool ceramic of the now-empty mug. The sensation becomes uncomfortably familiar for a second and he puts it down, hastily enough to ring out a sharp tap on the table surface. “As I said. I will consider it.” He’s not sure if Trant is aware how much pressure ' _could help your fellow officers'_ is in Kim’s mind.

* * *

Kim sucks down on his cigarette, the oxygen flow burning out the last millimetre of paper before it gets too close to the filter. He is annoyed that Harry is awake and aware of his surroundings. Not because of his endless questions, but because now he has assured Harry this is his _one_ cigarette of the day, he can’t have another until they solve the case or go to bed. The way Harry looks at him. His belief in Kim, in Kim’s mysterious self-possession, was clearly an important pillar of his mental stability. He couldn’t finish off a whole pack of Astras over the course of a weekend. Harry would crumble.

“So…” Harry asks, having drawn out a summary of the case, and wandered around Kim’s bedroom. Kim doesn’t really know why Harry is in there. Apart from the door was open, and any open door is basically an attractive nuisance to the man’s disordered mind. Kim suspects Harry’s motivation is at least partly trying to find out more about Kim, and he takes satisfaction from the fact that he has kept this little home-away-from-home as nondescript as possible. Nothing personal is on view, not even the latest of a series of sci-fi novels he tucked under the pillow before he went to sleep last night.

“I had Garte open the adjoining door. You were running a little bit of a fever and needed some attention… medical attention, during the night.”

Harry nods and points to his forehead, the brain pan that is a cradle of his many conflicting elements. “Thank you for keeping this… thing alive a little longer.”

Kim nods and begins subtly shifting the locus of their ambulant conversation back into the hall before Harry can pry more. “It would have been easy were I not concussed. Things could have been a lot worse. Shall we go?”

Harry follows onto the mezzanine. “So that’s all you’ve been doing the past couple of days? Nursing me?”

Kim briefly lets his eyes rest on the pinball machine in the cafeteria below, now illuminated again. “Yes, Harry. That’s all I’ve been doing.”

Harry regards him with a twinge of suspicion. But, through politeness or- far more likely- some mysterious voice in his head that is on Kim’s side for once, he drops it.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna make a joke, before I realised the joke possibly had enough legs to be a one-shot fic. Then I wrote it as a prompt for someone who is good at writing fics. Then I tried to think of a game that was DE-ishly similar to- but distinct from Tetris for the tetris effect. Tertra... four... tritris! and then I was like. Nope. *withdraw prompt* I gotta write this now. I mean. My name's Trias, it's right in there in what I eventually came up with as a title (I have a version with way more alliteration y'all got off easy.)
> 
> This is my first time posting on Ao3. I'm deeply apologetic to Poor Kim Kitsuragi that it had to be.... this. Just rest assured I envision lots of Harry Lap Naps and/or soothing Trant monologues in cosy places in your future.
> 
> Comments including minor corrections welcomed.
> 
> Thank you thank you to all beta readers, remaining errors mine.


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